Fixing Scratches in Wood with Hemp Oil

Meet my next furniture makeover project:

I bought it off of another furniture flipper who didn’t have the time to fix it up. It was a steal!

I don’t believe that it’s a very old, but it’s beautiful nonetheless. My goal was to save as much of that gorgeous burled wood veneer as I could manage. The top had several deep gouges and spots of chipped veneer though, so I knew I would have to paint it. Thankfully the veneer on the drawers was about 90% perfect! There were only a few small scratches and I knew I had just the right fix for them.

I was pretty sure all these drawer scratches needed was a little Hemp Oil and then they would be good as new. Hemp Oil is also a great topcoat option for milk paint projects (like this one here and here).

It’s really pretty amazing . . . take a look at this “before” picture of one of the scratches–

It’s most likely from the hardware swinging around over time and rubbing the surface. Well, after rubbing on some Hemp Oil here is what it looks like–

The scratches are barely visible. Isn’t that awesome? Just an old t-shirt and little elbow grease, and voila!

Here’s another area of some scratches before applying the Hemp Oil–

and now after–

Not only did it fix the scratches, but it brought back the luster and shine of all of the wood.

Flipping furniture for profit can get frustrating when you are trying to breath life back into an old piece of furniture So the next time you are about to give up on some lovely wood, you should definitely try out Hemp Oil.

This dresser is finished with the exception of fixing a few pieces of hardware, so be on the lookout for a final reveal post soon (you can see it now here). I’m telling you, it’s GORGEOUS!

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On the non-business side of things we celebrated my youngest’s 3rd birthday on Monday. My husband and I took our older two boys out of school for the day and trekked off to the Legoland Discovery Center.

Kids’ birthday parties can be exhausting . . . I will admit I’m not very good at throwing them. I was pretty sure the little man would enjoy a day with his family and some cake at the mall food court just as much as running around with 15 other 3 year olds in our backyard–and so would mommy!

So that’s how we celebrated–Legoland, and cake at the food court. And it was wonderful 🙂

I can’t believe he is three years old. He is for certain our last child (unless we would decide to adopt at some point) and is really our “miracle” child. Not saying that the other two aren’t special . . . he was just the only one who was born full term and healthy. I had two difficult pregnancies and had two preemie babies, then was told by my doctor and a specialist that I had a 50/50 chance of repeating the same problems in any successive pregnancies. There was no medicine they could give me, nothing they could do to help if my pregnancy went south again . . . all we could do was just pray. And pray we did.

When my youngest came into the world, full term, at a whopping 7 lbs. 11oz, on Good Friday three years ago, it was a blessed day. Now he’s 3 and we are officially out of Baby Land. Although, he still is the “baby” in my heart 🙂

10 Comments

That a beautiful dresser. SO GLAD you didn’t paint it. Btw, a walnut half almost works for scratches instead of stain.

Your kids are darling.

Melanie
on April 11, 2015 at 7:16 am

Thank you Teresa, and great tip on the walnut. I’ll have to give that a try.

Jill
on April 10, 2015 at 11:59 am

How is Hemp Oil different fom the 3 parts mineral oil to 1 part vinegar? Do they do the same thing? Thanks!

Melanie
on April 11, 2015 at 7:15 am

They do essentially function in the same way Jill. The main difference between the two though is that Hemp Oil is a 100% natural product while the mineral oil/vinegar combo is not (mineral oil is a petroleum product, and some people prefer to not work with petroleum products). In my experience the Hemp Oil is a little bit lighter. But if you don’t care about the 100% natural and are looking to save on costs, the mineral oil/vinegar will work just as well.

I was just looking at a dresser on craigslist this morning, and it had a knob in the middle of each drawer under the keyhole (giving the drawers 3 knobs each) and then lo and behold, I see your post with a dresser that also has the ‘middle knob’. Such a funny coincidence. I had never seen that before, and to be honest, I think it looks a bit weird. After all, we don’t have three hands, so how is that going to work? Does it look as though someone added that third knob at some point? or are they original to the piece. Just curious.

Melanie
on April 15, 2015 at 11:18 am

I too thought the third knob was a little strange. It looks original to me though. Maybe it’s meant more as a piece of jewelry 🙂 This is an extra wide dresser, so it could have been also to just break up the blank space.

Beautiful chest…and such a lovely family and story. Thx for sharing your special day with us. The love you have for each piece of furniture comes through in your posts, but this one seemed very special. Best of luck in your shop and special market season.

Well isn’t that awesome… it looks like it did pretty much the same thing “Restor-a-finish” does, but I bet it probably didn’t stink up your house the way that stuff does! Haha. If there’s an alternative way to do something that doesn’t involve introducing toxic fumes into your house, I’m all for it.

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